Grassland Common: Linking Ecology and Architecture

BACKGROUND: Grassland Common is an unbuilt visionary urban design proposal for the Melbourne northern growth corridor which considers the co-existence of development with a functioning and healthy ecosystem. It was produced with Mauro Baracco as chief investigator in partnership with the School of Architecture and Urban Design and the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT. The project was undertaken in 2015 with funding by RMIT Global Cities Research Institute. In 2018, it was exhibited at 'Repair', the Australian Pavilion at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. CONTRIBUTION: Grassland Common proposes an alternative to low dense housing estates that are laid across the landscape generally found in peri-urban development sites on the fringe of Australian cities. It integrates new built spaces into a shared public 'grassland common' that is kept free from new footprint. Responding to the notion of 'Repair', it provokes a new role for architecture to repair the places it is part of. It demonstrates Baracco's contribution to architecture that integrates built and natural systems to repair the environment to improve societal, economic and cultural conditions. Over the past 10 years he has developed this approach throughout the Wimmera region in Western Victoria through projects such as "Regenerated Towns: Regenerated Nature". SIGNIFICANCE: 'Grassland Common' was 1 of 15 projects selected for the curated exhibition 'Ground': a showcase of Australian projects projected inside the national Pavilion. It was selected from 126 submissions from around the country. The Venice Architecture Biennale is the most important global gathering of the built environment, attracting more than 220,000 visitors during its six month duration. The project was published in the exhibition catalogue. 'Repair' received extensive national and international critical and media coverage.